“I should have done, should do more.”
“Shayla.” I’m right in her face, and again my hands grip her arms. “Esme’s parents have reported him. She’s a sweet kid, they’re a respectable family. They’ll have the cops onside and looking into him. The cops know about Major, you can’t add anything else. The only thing you’d do by reporting him too is risk putting yourself on his radar.”
“It could have been me, Mace. Me, dead, all because of the whims of some sick man.”
Thank fuck it wasn’t. Now I wish I hadn’t told her. My hands are still on her biceps, and I notice while her anger has dissipated, she’s still shaking.
“You’re safe,” I tell her. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, okay? No one can get onto the compound, not even Major. At the shop you’ve got me, Ink and Pyro there as well. He won’t get to you.”
Her lip is trembling, and her eyes are wild and scared. I can’t help myself, I pull her into my arms, and she melts into me. “Shayla, darlin’, I promise I won’t let anything ever hurt you again. It’s just, having heard who Major is, I can’t bear to think of what you went through.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I probably don’t, and you don’t have to tell me, but I’m here if you ever want to talk. I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart. If you need to tell me for you, then do. None of the details will affect how I feel about you.”
“I don’t believe you love me. I can’t.”
She’s been let down before, by a man who she should have been able to rely on, who didn’t even send her a few dollars to get her back on her feet. She’s seen the very worst from men. I can see how she’d have a hard job believing me. Fuck, it’s hard to get my own head around the fact that I actually feel this depth of emotion for her.
I sit on the bed and pull her down beside me. “Before I met you, I went with the club girls. Mutual fun, darlin’, I’d never leave a girl wanting. Since I met you, babe, I haven’t been able to think about them, nothing about them appeals to me. Casual sex isn’t something I want anymore. I used to laugh at my brothers when they settled down, I couldn’t see myself as a one-woman man, until I met you.”
“I don’t understand.”
I huff a laugh. “I’m not explaining it well as I can’t comprehend it myself. But that first kiss we shared? More satisfying than a whole night of sex with one of the club girls.”
Her eyes are wide as she turns them on me. “I know you want sex with me, Mace. You know I know that. Think we made that pretty clear yesterday. You don’t need to dress it up as something it’s not.”
“I’m not,” I promise her. “I’m sure I can oblige if it’s only my body you want, but I want so much more with you.”
“This doesn’t sound like something you’d say, Mace.”
I chuckle. “It’s not. All new to me, babe.”
Her hand gently strokes down my face as she stares at me intently. Then she whispers reverently, “You’re serious, aren’t you?” When I raise and dip my chin, she surprises the hell out of me when she says, “Stay with me, Mace. Stay tonight.”
I’ve got a strong will, but with her? “Babe, if I stay the night, if I sleep in your bed, I’m not going to be able to keep my hands to myself.”
“Then, don’t.” Her words look like they surprise her.
I brush my fingers through her hair, brushing it back from her face. “I worry I’ll trigger you. Now I understand what those assholes did…”
“They did nothing I wanted them too.” She looks down to my groin. I’d been trying to ignore it, but the fucker’s rising with just the invitation she’s offered. Her eyes widen, but with interest and not fear. Then she looks back and meets my eyes. “A few weeks ago, I’d have run from the hills at the thought of ever being close to any man again. But slowly I’ve learned, you’re a man of your word. I know, here.” She places her hand over my heart. “I know you respect me, respect my feelings, and I know I can trust you. Please, Mace. I want to try.”
I cradle my hands either side of her face and lower my lips, but before I let them meet hers, I have to elicit a promise. “Anything, Shay, any-fuckin’-thing I do you don’t like, you tell me. Okay?”
Her head dips up and down once. It’s enough. I lower my lips and lose myself in her taste. Our mouths meet, meld, tongues chase tongues, moans escape and hands clutch. I know we’re wearing too many clothes. I want nothing more than to have my skin against hers.
Knowing I’m the first man she’s allowed into her bed since she was snatched off the street and forced into sex work is a heavy responsibility. I’m determined to make this special for her, to take every memory of each touch taken without permission away. To sear myself on her body and brain so there’s no room for her to think of anything else.
I reach for her t-shirt, she holds up her arms as if I’ve done this all my life and allows me to slide it over her head, our lips parting only as long as it’s necessary to do so. Then she’s tugging at mine. I grab the back of the neck and help her take it off, again, our kiss only pausing momentarily. I crush her body against mine, not even perving at her bra covered tits, too eager to feel the warmth of her skin against my chest.
As I slide my hands up and down her back, I encounter a dressing toward the base of her spine. “Sore?” I’m instantly thinking of positions where it won’t rub.
“No,” she replies. “The dressing can come off now, but I’m too nervous to look. Vi tried to show me in the mirror, but I looked away. I’m such a coward.”
I instantly know she means she thinks his name will still show. It might, I know she’ll need more sessions to complete the work, but in the end, it will be as if it was never there at all. I’ve seen and been a recipient of some of Vi’s handiwork. Not a coverup, but she did amazingly well when she gave me a new piece.
My hands move up, pausing at the clasp on her bra. “Tell me yes,” I all but beg, my words vibrating against her cheek.
“Yes,” she replies huskily.
I don’t hesitate, with a practiced move I push inwards so the hooks come free of the eyes, then let the bra fall open and push the straps down her arms.
“Let me see you,” I plead.
With a final peck to my lips, she pulls away and sits back. Her arms, still tangled in the bra, remain at her sides.
“Fuckin’ perfect,” I tell her, not lying at all. If I could have summoned up the ultimate pair of breasts in my mind, they’d have been topped by hers.
I can’t wait to sample them. Lowering my head, I suck a nipple into my mouth, sucking on it gently, and registering her sharp intake of breath. Then I apply the same treatment to the other.
“Lie down,” I instruct. “I want to see all of you now.”
With no hesitation at all, she shrugs free of her bra and discarding it by the side of the bed, she lets me ease her back until her head is on the pillow.
I don’t waste time. With my eyes on her face, checking she’s right here with me, I ease my thumbs into the elastic of her pyjama bottoms she’d obviously worn ready for bed, and take her panties down with it.
She’s bare, just how I like my women. I tell her so.
“I hate it.” She stuffs her hand against her mouth. “I had no choice, it was lasered.”
“Fuck.” There’s nothing else to be said. I try to make her see the bright side. “But it does mean you can feel my beard.” It’s not much more than stubble, but she hisses slightly as I rub her, giving her sensations I’m sure she’ll enjoy.
“Maccceeee.” She draws out my name. Then tries it again, “Mace.”
“What do you want, darlin’?” From the way her legs are rubbing together, it doesn’t take much for me to hazard a guess. “Want me to eat you out?”
“Oh, God, yes.”
I chuckle, making sure she can feel the vibration. “Not God, but a devil instead.”
I part her legs gently and settle between them. It doesn’t take much to encourage her clit out of its
protective hood, and I alternate between licking her clit and sucking and tonguing that bundle of nerves, my hand and fingers making up for where my tongue is not.
She’s writhing, as I wanted, thinking about nothing but how good I’m making her feel.
Under my free hand I can feel ripples of her stomach muscles, then she goes taut and screams. I become gentler with my administrations as I bring her back down. It’s been a long time since a man has made sex about her.
“Fuck, Mace. That was good.”
“Good? Feel like I’m damned with faint praise, sweetheart. Seems I’m going to have to up my game.”
She notices the grin on my face. “Very good?” she offers as a substitute.
“Better.” Growing serious I study her carefully. “Ready for more?”
“God, yes.”
I laugh again. Okay, so I don’t mind being a god with her. I turn so I can sit on the bed and get my boots off my feet, then stand so I can take off my jeans and underwear. Turning toward her, I see her eyes fixed to my cock. I taunt her by tugging on it.
“Mace, I want that.”
I grin. “I kind of hoped you would.”
“I like your tats.”
“I’ll let you study them later, but first things first, babe.” My cock is throbbing almost painfully in anticipation of the event ahead. I slide on the condom I’d extracted from my back pocket before the jeans fell to the ground.
Her eyes have dilated, and she can’t take her eyes off my dick. “You ready for me, darlin’?”
“So ready,” she breathes.
I have never felt like this in my life before. Never expected to, never dreamed I’d find a woman I wanted to keep in my life. I fuck and don’t give a damn about it, it’s just another part of being alive, as insignificant as riding my bike, enjoyable yes, but not momentous. At this moment, the thought of making love—not fucking, this won’t be that—for the first time to Shayla has made me nervous. I don’t want to fuck it up. I already know I want to claim her, though I won’t name it that. What if we don’t fit? If she doesn’t like it? If I’m mediocre at best?
Fuck. I’ve never questioned my performance, but it’s never been as important as this.
“Mace? What’s wrong?”
Christ, I’m taking too long, staring like a lunatic at her perfect cunt. I decide to go for honesty.
“I don’t want to fuck this up. I want this to be perfect.”
“It’s you, Mace. It will be.”
Her reassurance is all I need. I move onto the bed and leaning my body over hers, take her lips in another of our earth-scorching kisses. Then I pull back to watch her face as I start to push my cock into her. She’s wet, but tight and it’s a fight to get inside.
She’s lying passive beneath me. Passive.
A light bulb suddenly goes off in my head. I’m an asshole. She’s been used, abused for months. Holding the condom, I pull out and throw myself on my back.
“Mace?” she asks, tentatively. Beside me I feel her body stiffen.
“You drive.” I turn my head to the side, grinning into her face. “Use me, babe. Take what you need. You don’t want this? You just say the word.”
“I want this,” she wails. “Mace, don’t you want me?”
“Take me.” My cock’s throbbing, at full mast, bobbing as blood pulses through the veins. “Ride me, baby. You’re in charge.”
Not always, that man isn’t me. But right now, something tells me this is what she needs. Those assholes took and didn’t give, now it’s time for her to chase her own pleasure and use me.
Pulling herself to her knees, carefully she straddles my thighs. Her eyes lock with mine as she rises. When her hands touch my cock, I hiss. Just the feeling of her fingers on that so-ready-for-her part of me is driving me crazy.
“Don’t mind your hands on me, babe, but keep that up and I won’t last long.” I open eyes which have fallen shut by themselves, and I wink. “I don’t care, I’ll come either way. But if you want me—”
“I should move this along?” As she completes my sentence, I notice the stress lines which had appeared on her forehead have smoothed out again.
Now she positions my cock at her entrance, and deliberately, tortuously slow, lowers herself onto my dick. She rises and falls, her teeth biting her lips as air whistles out through my teeth. When she’s finally worked me fully inside, her hands land on my chest. Using my body to brace against, she begins to fuck me.
I let my hands gently rest on her hips, not trapping, just for support. I get to watch her head thrown back, as she uses my body to bring herself close.
My cock thickens, my spine tingles, but still I hold myself back.
“Mace,” she cries out, her brow drawn down.
“What do you need? Need me to work that pretty clit, babe?”
“Mace. Please.”
I do, rubbing as best I can, and at last I feel her muscles clamping down on me.
“Mace I’m gonna…”
“Me too…” I shout.
We come together. Two sweaty bodies pulsating in time, two foreheads meeting as she brings her head down.
After our breathing has slowed, she lifts up, and I hold that condom steady, then curl my abs to sit up. “Gotta…”
“Yeah, go get rid of the evidence.” She grins.
I do. When I return from the bathroom, I pause a moment, my eyes feasting on the sight of this woman in the bed. The only thing wrong is that it’s hers and not mine. Half closing my eyes, I imagine her in my room.
“Come,” I say fast. When her head tilts, I tell her again, “Come to my bed. Cause that’s where I want you sleeping from now on.”
“That sounds permanent.”
“It’s what I want.” I know as I utter them, truer words I’ve never said.
She’s quiet for a moment. Then she stands, wrapping the sheet around her. When she bends to pick up her clothes, I reach out my hand to stop her. “I’ll come back for your shit, later.”
One hand holds the covering to her, the other reaches for mine. It takes less than a minute to change rooms, and less again before it’s my bed she’s lying on, my comforter under her perfect ass.
I catch my breath. She looks right, as if it’s her place, an adornment to my room I hadn’t realised I was missing.
Crossing the room to her, I slide behind her, pulling her back to my front. Out of my mouth come words I never expected to say in my life. “Stay with me, Shayla. Stay. Here in my bed, here at the compound, or a new home we’ll get together instead. Stay, Shayla. Stay with me.”
She’s quiet for a moment, then says, “If I stay, I may never leave.”
“Didn’t say anything about you leaving, babe.”
I swallow back the words I’d love to say. I don’t tell her she’s mine, I don’t tell her I’d like it to be my property patch on her back.
She’ll be my ol’ lady. But some of the meaning we put to that will probably never be spoken between us.
Her breathing starts to even out, and I think she’s dropped off to sleep, but then she murmurs, “Rodger told me he loved me, Mace. But he lied. He wanted someone to keep house, and I was convenient. Look how easily he replaced me, while Vanna waited for Lizard more than a decade.”
Rodger. Hell, there are probably hundreds of men with that name in Vegas, but maybe if I’m sneaky I can get a last name someday. Then I’ll go pay him a visit.
“If you disappeared, Shay, I’d move heaven and earth to find you. I might not have expected to feel this way, but I do love you. I’ve never said that to a woman before.”
“I can’t say it back,” she tells me, honestly. “Not yet. Loving a man gives them power over me.”
I’m going to show her although she may have said the words to someone else, she’s never truly been in love before. Somehow, one day, I’m going to hear her say she loves me.
How can I be so confident? Because I’m going to do everything to be the man she can give her heart to, knowing it wi
ll never be broken again.
Chapter Forty-Two
Vanna
The rap-rap wakes me. It’s dark outside. A hollow feeling settles inside me as I reach for my phone. It’s four-thirty a.m. Being woken at this hour means only one thing. Trouble. It’s almost exactly the same time as I was woken with the call telling me Lizard had been injured and was going to be medevac’d out and flown home. The time indelibly written on my brain. That had been a Thursday too.
Does history repeat itself?
Only one way to find out. I jerk up and out of bed, slipping into my robe and go to the door.
“What’s happened?” I ask Lizard fast when I open it. If he’s okay, it must be my other male I worry about. “Is it Cas?”
“Nah, Castiel’s fine, babe. I needed to talk to you.”
“It’s barely dawn,” I observe, my worry not dissipating at all. “What’s so important it couldn’t wait?”
There’s a difference about him, a confidence that’s been missing since I found him again, or at least, since he’d been able to recognise me. He raises his hand, lays it flat against my robe covered chest and pushes me into the room, steps inside, and closes the door behind him.
“I grabbed a couple hours of downtime after I came back from the emergency room, but I could wait no longer, Vanna. I need to talk to you.”
He’s been to the hospital? “What is it, Liz? Oh God, what happened to you? Are you worse?”
But I notice he’s only using one crutch, and while he’s still using it to help, he’s putting even more weight on the leg that hadn’t been much use to him before.
“What’s happened?” I repeat. My life’s been blow after blow, I’m conditioned to expect the worse now.
“Let’s sit and talk.”
Again he pushes until the backs of my knees hit the bed, then with a hand on my shoulder he encourages me down, and sits beside me.
Satan’s Devils MC -Colorado Box Set: Books 4-6 Page 114
